The local state university is quite near my house.  And just like the universe itself, the university is expanding.   The most recent building is an arts center, and what is an arts center without art?   They have plonked down a number of large pieces of art, in a sort of random accumulation, so that one can tell that this is, in fact, an arts center.

The giant chicken roadrunner bird-like thing was made by a local sculptor some years ago.   It used to be at his house, until the neighbors complained about tourists showing up to look at all his art (there was a bunch of these).  So now it sits here in splendor (and it really is lovely).

This is another one of his pieces, and it moves in the breeze.   So on this day, that was the way the wind was blowing.

And here is yet another piece from the same artist, he made a lot of these things.  (And now you can see that the wind has changed direction too).

This one is not so attractive.   It looks like some sort of abandoned industrial by-product or fallen space junk, rusting away into oblivion.

This one is made of neon and at night, whatever they are supposed to be lights up, one after another.  I thought that they looked vaguely like roses, and I was immediately put in mind of Four Roses brand whiskey (the choice of skid row alcoholics everywhere).  And yes I do realize that there are five whatevers, but it’s hard to count them when one is just driving by after dark.

And then there is this bit, a collaborative effort of the artist and the grounds keepers.

I’m not sure how all of these pieces go together in any kind of artistic harmony, but I’m sure for the artists the best part is that they are displayed (and they got paid for it!).

When I was a child, westerns were extremely popular in both the television and at the movies.  Cowboys were good (especially if they wore a white hat), Indians were mostly bad, Easterners were idiots and fops, and bankers (who were sometimes Easterners) were evil.  That in a nutshell is the iconic and idealized version of the west, and it perhaps carries a tiny nugget of truth along with a great lump of mythologizing.

Most importantly in the West of the imagination is the cowboy, that lone figure battling against the forces of nature and the encroaching civilization (darn those Easterners).  Armed with a gun and a moral code, bringing law to the lawless frontier, whether it likes it or not.

Here’s a bit of art distilling the essence of the west into a single existential cowboy.   This art resides at the Santa Fe airport, and I am not entirely sure what it means.

Cowboys have to have someone to fight and overcome, so how about a studly Indian.  This guy did not waste his time making arrows and such, he looks as though he hit the gym and worked out everyday.

Every cowboy and Indian needs a horse.  The one the Greeks used to fool the Trojans was not nearly as splendid as this one.

Lest we forget that there were others inhabiting the West, here are some Mariachi ghosts to round out this small tour of icons.

The local public university, which started out years ago as an extension of the state university, located in an old unused tuberculosis hospital, has slowly been expanding into the surrounding area.  And that is good, because there just was not enough *#*^!+# parking at the main site.  And one of the expanding things that the university has is a new art gallery space in a theater building.  The inaugural show has just been hung, so I stopped in to check it out.  I missed the actual opening, and this is good because there were apparently 650 people crammed into the space for this (and it certainly means I would have missed out on the wine and nibbles).

I have paint cans and other bits of stuff laying about in my garage, why didn’t I ever think of displaying them like this?  (Oh, it’s because I would trip over the strings).   What you can’t see in this picture is that there was a barrier to prevent any mishaps.

The woman barely visible in this shot is studying to be a curator, so that she can put together shows like this one.

The artist only needed two colors of paint to finish this one.

I guess he forgot that paint runs.

This one is made up of multiple canvases,  painted together to make a work large enough to cover the entire wall of this gallery.  And me and the other two people at the show got to enjoy the works without any art talk to distract us.   😉

First Friday:  the day of the month that all the local galleries try especially hard to flog their wares.   The better ones have wine and nibbles, but on this day I decided to try the local museum.   Recently acquired by the expensive private college, it seemed like it might be an interesting venue.

This statue formerly stood at the east end of the hall, now he’s here at the west end, ever at the ready to put an arrow in the ceiling, if required.

There is a lounge, shown here full of hipsters.  It had a cash bar and art for sale: today it was knitted objects and hand spun skeins of wool, artfully displayed.   I actually knew one of the artists from my knitting group, she was one of women who was under 100 years old.  🙂  I don’t know if she sold anything, but bravo to her for getting a show.

What kind of a hipster event would it be without this guy?  Stylishly dressed (for a hipster) in his fedora and ink, he was doing a painting in neon colors under a black light.   (These things take me back in time:  Old guys wore fedoras when I was a kid, and who could forget the popularity of black light posters when we were hippies).

Apparently one of their paintings in the permanent collection has gone out on tour.   This portrait of a local girl was painted by John Singer Sargent at the family estate in England.  Her life and this very portrait is examined in a new book “Sargent’s Women” by Donna M Lucey.   Elsie is getting her moments of fame, only a hundred or so years late.

So that was it, cash bar and no nibbles, perhaps I shall cross this off my list of first Friday venues.